2021-07-01 Xin Lu, Dalian Trade Center, China
– High market potential as the industry is in the early stage –
– Joint development between Chinese companies and American AI research institutes is also active –
According to the 'Chinese Health and Health Statistical Yearbook' published by China at the beginning of this year, the number of visits to medical institutions by Chinese in 2019 amounted to 87 billion, an increase of 2000% from 2015, and the trend is increasing every year. In contrast, the number of doctors in China stood at 13.3 as of the end of 2019. On average, there are 386 doctors per 7000 population, which is slightly lower than the OECD average of 1000 during the same period.
< Size of China's medical market (Unit: XNUMX million yuan) >
Note: estimates for 2020 and 2021
Source: Medium Business Information Network (中商情报网)
In China, due to the small number of medical personnel compared to patients, it has led to the accumulation of fatigue of medical personnel, lowering the service level, and decreased patient satisfaction. do. According to Ziyen Consulting, rural China is in a more serious situation due to factors such as poor medical infrastructure, non-standardization of medical equipment, budget difficulties, insufficient skills of medical personnel, and high drug procurement costs.
In order to overcome these difficulties, the Chinese government has announced opinions on medical reform called "New Medical Reform" since 2009. The main purpose of this medical reform is to reduce patients' medical expenses and make it easier to receive medical services. In addition, smart medical care that introduces IT, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies is growing rapidly to improve the overall level of medical services. In particular, as people went out less due to COVID-1919, the number of hospital visits decreased by about 1% from January to November last year. In this situation, the demand and utilization of smart medical care are gradually increasing.
Background of the emergence of smart medicine in China
The background of the emergence of smart medicine in China is due to the aforementioned shortage of Chinese medical resources. Due to the insufficient number of doctors compared to patients, patients cannot enjoy satisfactory medical services, and doctors are also unable to provide quality services due to the harsh working environment. Due to this, a market like a ticket was formed centered on the middle class and above, medical costs rose, and the polarization in quality became serious.
Second, the misdiagnosis rate was also a factor that could accelerate the growth of smart medicine. According to the 'Chinese Artificial Intelligence Medical White Paper', in the case of human doctors, the initial false diagnosis rate is at least 50% in China. On the other hand, trust in AI treatment has increased as AI has been dominant in various artificial intelligence-to-human medical tests conducted recently by Google and IBM.
Third, there is regional imbalance in China's medical infrastructure. In China, hospitals are divided into 3rd grade, 2nd grade, 1st grade, and unpaid depending on the infrastructure, manpower, and scale of hospitals. For this reason, there are many cases in China where Chinese living outside large cities dispose of personal assets in their hometowns and flock to large cities when they or their children become seriously ill.
Against this background, the demand for smart medical care in China has rapidly increased, and China's high wireless Internet penetration rate and advanced IT, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies have combined with these demands, leading to the rapid growth of the current smart medical market.
The emergence of smart medicine
Smart medicine refers to the latest medical service that provides services such as remote treatment, prescription, diagnosis, and examination to patients by combining IT and artificial intelligence technology using big data. With the advent of the Internet, telemedicine infrastructure, and diagnostic solutions using big data, patients can enjoy some medical services without visiting a hospital. Smart medicine is achieved through collaboration between large hospitals and small hospitals. When the information of patients who visited a small hospital is sent to large hospitals and AI medical companies, it is analyzed and sent back to the small hospital, and the small hospital diagnoses, treats, and prescribes medicine to the patient based on the results.
< Smart Medical Flow Chart >
Source: Anshin Securities
Smart medical policy
In 2009, when the State Council of China announced an opinion on medical reform called 'Shinui-gae (新医改)', it was before the concept of smart medicine was born. With the rapid development of wireless Internet and IT in China in the 2010s, the State Council of China has been issuing policies for the development of smart medicine in earnest from 2016.
< China's Smart Medical Policy >
Source: Organized data on the State Council website, etc.
With such active support from the government and huge market demand, the Chinese smart medical market has grown rapidly. From 2017 to 2019, the growth rate was 31.9%, and according to the statistical data of the China Electronics Society, the size of the Chinese smart medical market is expected to grow to 2021 billion yuan in 75.3.
Smart medical companies and products
The major products of smart medicine currently used in the market include medical imaging assistance systems, disease prediction solutions, medical robots, health management solutions, drug R&D software, medical assistance systems, and medical history analysis solutions. According to the 'China Smart Medical Industry Map for 2021', among the smart medical related products, only 43 companies and 45 companies, respectively, are dealing with medical imaging assistance systems and disease prediction solutions. Major companies involved include Alibaba Cloud, WINGSPAN Technology, Arigin Medical, Two Martian Way (12 SIGMA), Berry Genomics, and CapitalBio. The table below summarizes the major smart medical-related companies and products in China.
< Major companies and products related to smart medicine in China >
Source: Chengzan Industrial Research Institute
Smart Medical Use Cases
(1) Medical imaging
The smart image identification system is a product that combines medical imaging equipment and artificial intelligence technology. Assist physicians in performing disease and condition analysis more effectively. For example, ZYING's chest imaging health management system, 'Lung Butler', evaluates the patient's overall cardiopulmonary health and detects microscopic lesions that cannot be distinguished with the naked eye. This helps early detection of the disease and records and document the results.
< Zhiing Medical's Chest Imaging Health Management System >
Source: ZYING website
(2) Drug development
Recently, biopharmaceutical companies are also adopting artificial intelligence. Smart drug development is an example of applying deep learning technology to drug R&D, and it plays a role in quickly finding substances suitable for drugs through deep learning big data analysis. Through this, the cycle of R&D can be shortened, development costs can be reduced, and above all, effective drug development is supported. Mingkander Yao (WuXi AppTec), the No. XNUMX company in China's CRO (Clinical Trial Agency), invested in Insilico Medicine, an American artificial intelligence research institute, to develop artificial intelligence technology in the areas of target targeting, drug development, and anti-aging research. did it
< R&D collaboration between Yao Mingkander and Insilico Madison >
Material: 36Kr
(3) disease prediction
In 2018, Tencent Artificial Intelligence Lab launched an artificial intelligence model that predicts Parkinson's disease by detecting human motion. The evaluation process is very simple. The patient performs a series of movements in front of the camera. Then, the artificial intelligence identifies the patient's motions and joints through image identification technology, and analyzes and diagnoses them. The Tencent Artificial Intelligence Research Center is planning to introduce a model for identification of supplements that helps patients with brain palsy in the future and a model for analyzing motor nerves of the elderly.
< Tencent Parkinson's disease diagnosis artificial intelligence model >
Source: Tencent website
(4) Diagnosis assistant and hospital logistics robot
In early 2019, the renowned medical journal 'Nature Medicine' published the results of electronic health record (EMR) clinical smart treatment research based on machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) jointly by research institutes such as Guangzhou Women's Children's Hospital and YITU in China. announced This technology basically analyzes electronic health record data using deep learning and knowledge graph. This serves to categorize diseases and store data. Nihao (倪浩), president of Itu Technology, said, “The symptoms of childhood diseases are so diverse that even doctors find it difficult to accurately diagnose them. However, using the diagnostic assistance system is very effective because the accuracy is increased and the time and cost are reduced.”
The Guangzhou Women's and Children's Hospital mentioned above is a hospital that is very active in introducing the latest technology. In particular, as people are reluctant to have contact with each other in the hospital due to COVID-19, the demand for hospital logistics robots is increasing significantly. The hospital also introduced the Nuya 5G hospital logistics robot, which is the world's first 5G hospital logistics robot. It is equipped with a fast response speed and high-precision sensors and operates in real-time linkage with other robots. It can also independently deliver supplies and collect medical waste even in complex buildings such as hospitals.
< Nuya 5G Hospital Logistics Robot >
Source: Southern+
implication
During the two sessions in China this year, Hu Yu (胡豫), a member of the China Political Consultative Conference and the director of the hospital affiliated with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said that smart medicine in China is still at a rudimentary level and that a master plan is needed for future development at the national level. At the government level, standardization of the smart medical industry should be accelerated, and companies are of the opinion that it is important to solidify basic technologies such as data management and algorithm development.
According to the Industrial Information Network, the growth rate of the medical and health industry is expected to increase from 2035% to 2.2% by 3.4 due to convergence with artificial intelligence. As China's population is currently aging and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over is gradually increasing, the demand for medical care among the elderly will gradually increase. In addition, although the number of chronic diseases among modern people is increasing, it is difficult to evenly distribute Chinese medical resources by region. Due to these opportunity factors, China's smart medical industry is expected to develop rapidly.
Korea's world-class medical industry and IT technology innovation in smart medical field have developed starting with the field of artificial intelligence diagnosis. judge that In such a process, it is worth pursuing along with China's medical industry opening in the future for Korean biopharmaceutical companies and hospitals to advance together.
Source: Industrial Information Network, Sino-Commerce Information Network, China Smart Medical Industry Map for 2021, China National Health Planning and Growth Committee, Medworld, Health Center, Loongray, Southern+, 36Kr, Anshin Securities, etc. Data from KOTRA Dalian Trade Center organize